


Mateys

by Missy



Category: Futurama
Genre: Action/Adventure, Gen, Humor, Mother-Daughter Relationship, Pirates, Spas
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-12-25
Updated: 2015-12-25
Packaged: 2018-05-09 07:04:38
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,738
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/5530364
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Missy/pseuds/Missy
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Leela's plan to share a peaceful holiday with her mother at a spa goes terribly wrong when space pirates hold them hostage.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Mateys

Leela shoved her suitcase closed, tucking it under her arm before taking a good look around the room, taking a quick check to make sure she’d managed to cover everything. She noticed the quiet that surrounded her as she decided the place was adequately secure enough to endure some housesitting – then she patted Nibbler atop his head.

“Mamma’s only gonna be gone for a week,” she cooed to him. “Promise you’ll be a good boy for Fry while I’m on the moon at the Dagospa System with grandmamama?”

Nibbler chattered, rubbing his head against her hand. Leela took that as an affirmative sign that everything in the apartment would probably stay the way she left it.

Hopefully. Unless Fry set her shower on fire the way he did the last time she was out of town.

*** 

Her mother was almost eager when Leela arrived to pick her up. Munda sported her best housedress, and a large pair of sunglasses, along with a small valise. 

“Do you think they have mai tais on the moon?” Munda asked, as they walk arm and arm back to the ship. “I won’t be mad if they don’t have it! Just really disappointed.”

Leela patted her mother’s tentacle. “I’m sure they’ll have plenty of alcohol. Come on, we don’t want to be late!”

Mother and daughter jetted off to the peaceful promise of Dagospa without further comment, Munda taking pictures nonstop as they went. 

“Oooh, look Leela! It’s a black star…no wait, what do they call it? A cosmic void,” 

“Whatever it is - it’s a-void-a-ble!” Leela cracked, hoping her mother might get a laugh out of her joke. There was no laugh as she brought the ship in for a landing. It’s the first time she’s been alone with her mother in ages and she wants to make a decent impression.

Munda’s eye was wide open as they disembark from the ship. Leela lead her down the gangway and locked it up. It was two feet to the front door of a very soothing looking white clapboard inn, one that had been popular as a resort thousands of years ago; behind the desk was an orange twelve-tentacled being with a large red-lipped mouth. “Hello!” It said enthusiastically. “Are you our ten o’clock!”

“Yep! The reservation should be under Turanga Leela.”

“And indeed they are! You and your mother should head on over to the massage room. Then we’ll move you over to hot rocks, fire walking, deep constriction…” 

“…Leela, I don’t know if I like the sound of some of these…”

“Give it a chance,” Leela gently encouraged. “We’ll take the light bruising package, please.”

“Very light bruising,” said Munda.

“That’s the spirit,” her daughter agreed, and crossed her fingers for an improvement.

*** 

“…Okay, I’ve given it a chance, can we go home?”

Leela was lying face-down on the massage table, being suction-cupped to total relaxaction by her four-armed massuse. “Aren’t you having a good time?”

“There’s a giant rock between my shoulder blades,” Munda said. 

“It’s supposed to relieve you of tension,” said Leela.

“Oh, that’s nice,” Munda said. “When does that start happening?”

Leela tried to turn her suddenly once more tense neck in the firection of her mother’s s voice. “You really aren’t haeing a good time, are you?”

“I bet I will if I get used to the rock,” she said. At her words, a sudden crackling sound brought both women to simultaneous attention. “What was that?” Munda whispered.

The masseuse frowned. “I’ll go check and see if it’s the ambient noise machine going nuts again. It loves to do that,” she added offhandedly. The sound of her suction-cup sticking her way out of the room filled the air until mother and daughter were. Leela – as relaxed as she was – took a few minutes to actually get her muscles coordinated enough to grab her blaster and get her clothes back on. “I’m going to make sure there isn’t any trouble. If you hear any noise, stay down.”

“I know what to do. I’ve seen enough of those spy shows to know how to take care of myself.”

“This isn’t the same thing, mom. Just stay safe, and if you have to hit them high.”

“Gotcha. Hit high, stay low,” Munda said. Leela left her there and crept out into the hallway to double-check that everything was still kosher.

That was when she heard…musket fire? Yes, she was pretty sure that was what musket fire sounded like. She raced toward the sound of danger, which she discovered was emanating from the faculty’s waiting room. She pressed close to the doorframe and squinted into the space between. 

“Hands up, ye landlubbers! This is a boardin’! We be searching for precious jewels, so hand them over and nobody will be hurt!” 

_Oh no!_ Leela thought to herself, _I remember that face!_ indeed, his image came to her with no difficulty – it was Jacques Bluebeard Desparrow, the pirate king of alpha centauri. The crew had delivered that very musket to him a few weeks ago. She remembered the encounter briefly; he’d called her a wench, she’d slapped him, and Bender had tried to join up with the blackhearted scallywags only to be firmly rebuffed. They’d had to fight their way back to their own ship after he swiped Desparrow’s favorite ruby, and now the snout-nosed, purple-faced alien stood before her, trying to take other treasures.

“The register doesn’t have any bills over forty in it,” the receptionist said helplessly. Deep within its belly, Leela could hear a few hundred Richard Nixons complaining about the value of a dollar and taxes. 

“Then give me the register! And a few mints!” He plunged his free hand into a basket on her desk. “And all of yer buttermints!”

Leela’s fingers tightened about the heft of her blaster; she’d wait, bide her time until there was an opening – it presented itself when he bent over to try to heave the register from its mountings and carry it off. She kicked the door down and launched herself a few feet into the room, chopping the back of the pirate’s neck. 

He let out a startled gasp and fell face-forward into the tray, and Leela immediately y tried to stun him with her phaser. Jacques was surprisingly quick for an old salt though, and managed to flip around.

“Yar. It be a New Mexican standoff!” he said. He squinted at her. “I might find a place for ye among my crew if I win. Ye’ve got a lot of spunk.”

“The last man who told me I was spunky ended up with a hole in his rib,” Leela said. 

“Surprised ye be aiming straight with that puny thing.”

“Surprised you can see anything with all of that squinting you’re doing.”

“Me eyes are bad! Don’t be remarkin’ on that! It’s piratist!” 

Leela’s eye stayed trained on his trigger finger. Her keen ears could hear everything from the drip of the coffee maker in the background to the receptionist’s annoyed sighing. Then she heard the soft sound of the door opening behind her, and saw a tiny tuft of grey-purple hair peeking through the crack. It distracted her just enough to allow Desparrow to get the drop on Leela, knocking her out with a quick blast from his pistol.

**** 

_Oh, wonderful,_ Leela thought to herself as she came to and realized that he’d tied her up. _I’m going to die the stupidest, most worthless death I can think of that doesn’t involve string cheese._

She watched Jacques as he emptied the register and took stock of her surroundings. The ropes were strong, the force field double-reinforced and likely stolen from an officer of the law; there was no way she could break them in time. 

“Leela, honey!” she heard nearby. Carefully turning toward the sound she saw her mother in the air vent, lying belly down with her face pressed close to the grating.

“How did you get in there?” she whispered. “If he sees you…”

“Oh psht! I’ve been hiding in these things since you were a kid.” Leela frowned. “Don’t ask questions, sweetie, the flies will get in.”

“Can you get outside and find us help?” Leela asked anyway.

“Even better, I think I can sneak up on him and hit him over the head.”

“Mom, don’t! It’s too dangerous!”

“I’ll be fine, sweetie! I think there’s a way to get from here over there up to the ceiling. You keep concentrating on getting free!”

“But I need you to…” whatever else Leela wanted to say was spoken to a blank space – her mother was already gone. She started persistently working on the lock holding her bonds together, and her manual dexterity managed to win her a bit of an advantage

“And that’ll be all I’ll be needin’ from you this evening.” The pirate tilted his tricorner hat and gave them a grin. “Fine meetin’ you again Captin’ Leela.”

“I wish I could say the same thing,” Leela said, feeling the lock give. Her eyes were fixed on her blaster, which hung from his belt loop. One more step and she’d be there. _turn your back, you idiot_ she thought frantically. All of her wishing and hoping only resulted in a sudden shock when she saw the grating fall and strike the pirate down, flat on the top of his head. 

Munda tumbled out right after, and Leela rushed over to pull them apart. By the time she reached her mother Munda was already angrily slapping Jacques across the face with her tentacles. 

“That’s for attacking innocent, naked people! And that’s for stealing! Take that! AND THAT!”

“Mom! Mom, stop! You’re drawing blood.”

“He deserves it!”

The pirate gave them a now bloodier grin. “Like mother, like daughter, eh?”

Leela threw in an extra punch of her own before contacting the authorities.

*** 

Sans massages but with a full refund, mother and daughter boarded the Planet Express ship on a return trip. “I’m sorry you didn’t have a good time,” Leela said, once they were alone again. “I really wanted to make you happy.”

“You gave me the best gift a daughter can give her mother, Leela.”

“A bruise on her tentacle?”

“No,” Munda said warmly. “A good memory and some time together.” Leela smiled warmly and she started the engine as her mother added, “but I have to admit, the butt kicking part was fun too.”


End file.
